the other side of the mountain

I went over to Forgottenmachine’s new pad+ on Sunday. After examining his loft space++ (which would make any conspiracy theorist’s mouth water), we settled down for tea and a hushed conversation+++ on the physics of Kung Fu movies. Okay, no more footnotes. I promise.

I was trying really hard not to think about the unique difficulties that Kung Fu fighters have to face when visiting the water closet. For example, what happens when the Dark Matter strikes the water? Does it ricochet back up towards its orifice of origin, or does it explode into a thousand pieces, coating everything in a fine layer of that-which-once-was-food. Food for though, huh?

Fortunately, Mrs FM emerged from the south wing of Casa Máquina Olvidada and rescued me from my ruminations with a truly chilling story about a purveyor of teddy bears at the Kirstenbosch craft market. This, in turn, sparked a discussion about how people with certain personality types – or more to the point, dysfunctions – seem ideally suited to specific jobs:

• Thick skin; unable to take no for an answer; people want to smash their faces in = Telemarketer
• Anal-retentive; detail obsessed; no social skills or fashion sense = Engineer
• Vindictive; suffers various forms of OCD; social pariah = Auditor
• And so on…

It’s a variation on the old “Nature versus Nurture” theme. I can’t quite decide whether people pick a career path according to their predisposition for a particular kind of activity, or if it’s the work that brings out the necessary latent characteristics. Then again, maybe we’re all just part of a worldwide experiment that the alien lizard people from Robertson are conducting. It would go some way towards explaining this rat-in-a-maze feeling I get when I’m at the office.

+ Yes, I do use words like “pad”

++ No, that is not a euphemism

+++ Mrs Forgottenmachine was having an afternoon nap